The Darkest Evening of the Year
by Rygelina
Summary: Will is home and recovering from the injuries he sustained in "Mizumono", but he is far from okay. One dark night, he reaches his breaking point.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters and situations of "Hannibal". No copyright infringement is intended.

 **A/N:** Write what you know, they say, so this is dedicated to the memory of a friend who left me feeling as gutted as Will. (What? You were expecting cute holiday fluff? This is Hannibal, after all.) I suspect I've gotten the time line between seasons 2 and 3 wrong, so please ignore that. I know this isn't very cheery, but Happy Holidays, Fannibals! :)

 **The Darkest Evening of the Year**

It was the night of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year... and the darkest.

The remains of spring and most of summer had passed him by unnoticed where he lay in his hospital bed. When he came to, and started fighting his way back to the land of the living – no longer a ghost hovering in the hinterland between life and death – it was just in time to watch the light fading outside his window.

The year was slowly dying, but to his great surprise, he was not.

Now – well past most of the holidays that normal people marked the passing of time with, in the last madly flickering days of a year he would just as soon rather forget – he found himself wandering the fields in the dark. The sky was mute, the stars muffled and blind, and yet he remained out there in the middle of a vast nothingness.

Solitary, frost-covered fields glowed gray against the darkened sky, the surrounding landscape deprived of even the smallest source of light. Even so, he had long since turned off his flashlight. The darkness was compact, oppressive, but he welcomed it. It enveloped him like a blanket, soothing the jagged edges of his memories.

His boots crunched over grass frozen into rolling waves of icicles. The only other sounds were his own harsh breathing and the weaker panting of the dogs around him. They were unusually silent, gathering around him in a protective circle. Now and then, the wind sighed against him in a hushed, almost reverent, voice.

Some detached, clinical part of his mind had recognized what he was going through, of course; had counted off the stages of grief like the ticking of a clock, watching as the rest of him coped with the emotional fallout.

First came denial, a disbelief so powerful that words turned to ashes in his mouth. Every time he had tried to speak of that night, his voice had died, seemingly incapable of giving shape and sound to the incomprehensible. For weeks, he had remained like that, locked in a cage of silence. Then came anger. Or rather, a righteous fury that had carried him out of the hospital and all the way home, against all medical advice. That had soon died, however, the embers briefly fueling a desperate hope, a feeling that everything could have been fixed, 'if' piling on top of 'if' until he thought he would suffocate under the weight. And as the darkness overtook the light, all that turmoil had in turn given way to depression, an icy lethargy stealing into his limbs.

He wanted to surrender, to lay down his arms and just cease to exist. The spark inside his chest, the tiny light that told him who and what he was, was fading, flickering out like a guttering candle. All that held him together was a final act of will, and now even that was growing weaker, threatening to release the atoms in his body from their bonds, making them go spinning off into the void.

The murky nothingness surrounding him beckoned. Oh, how he longed to be part of that emptiness, to let it swallow him up and lead him wantonly astray down darkened paths twisting forever into nowhere. There was peace in that nothingness, but it was a peace that he knew far too well; a treacherous undertow that he no longer trusted.

Unknowingly, he had picked up the pace as the maudlin thoughts once again invaded his mind. He came to the crest of a small hill and had to stop, almost doubled over. Once again, he had driven himself too hard. A wave of nausea and pain rolled through him. His face twisted, tiny drops of sweat beading on his forehead. His hand curled protectively around his stomach and he tried to take shallow breaths, but deep enough so that he didn't pass out. His heart pounded in his chest, an almost panicked beat.

Abigail's grave, still and lifeless, offering no comfort. Alana's face as she turned away from him, unspoken recriminations hanging in the air like daggers. Jack's concern, solicitous and caring, but nonetheless laced with suspicion. They all weighed on him, each an anchor around his neck as heavy as lead.

He snorted to himself. You'd think that what had happened would have brought them all closer, that the seasoned survivors would band together, taking comfort from each other, but no. More than mere flesh and bone had been injured that fateful night. All their bonds had been severed, expertly, cleanly, and like orphaned comets they now wandered, darkling and alone, through cold and empty space. It was nothing short of Judgment.

The dogs were indistinct blurs around him, dark shapes flitting in and out of his field of vision, their paws whispering over the ground. Only Winston stayed close, almost hovering, regarding his master. Will didn't notice. He had squeezed his eyes shut and was trying very hard not to throw up. Finally, he gave in and collapsed to his knees in the snow.

Winston let out a soft, questioning whine, a wet nose brushing against Will's cheek. Still coughing, trying to regain his breath, he petted the soft head. The dog was sitting primly next to him, and now leaned in against Will, almost as if he was offering support. For a moment, Will took him up on the offer, hugging the warm body to him, his fingers twisting in the fur.

That he had survived that night still felt inconceivable; now and then, he even found himself doubting it, sometimes with such passion and dedication that he felt like he was living in a dream. It painted the world around him with a streak of surrealism that made him question his sanity. More than anyone, he knew how fragile and painfully thin the line between sane and insane was. Now more than ever he wished he could just step over it. Another snort of laughter caught in the back of his throat. Or was it a sob?

One would think that thoughts of Hannibal would fill him with all sorts of resentment and anger, but it didn't. It was strange, perhaps, but he didn't even blame Hannibal. If he blamed anyone, he blamed himself. Not for indulging in petty vengeance and almost falling down the rabbit hole himself, not even for warning him, but for the sheer hubris of thinking that he could beat him at all. But most of all, he blamed himself for thinking less of the man than he should have. Abigail, not him, had paid the price for that.

He ran his hand along his stomach, imagining he could feel the raised, puckered line even through his shirt and jacket. And as he did, another hand, pale and incorporeal, followed in its wake. He shuddered as memory superimposed itself on reality.

At the moment, Will had considered his death strangely fitting. The Hannibal he thought he knew was dead and gone, and soon he would be, too. Perhaps Will had even considered it just; the punishment for the crime he knew in his heart he had committed. It wasn't rational, but there it was, like a thorn imbedded in his heart... or a scar, indelibly imprinted on the skin.

Snow had started falling from the sky, in tiny, almost insubstantial, puffs of smoke. He leaned his head backwards and they kissed his face, caressing it ever so gently. It made him long for another feather-light touch, one he would surely never feel again.

He didn't believe in any higher power, but now he found himself wishing that he could, if only so someone would hear the words he whispered into the frigid air, and somehow carry them to the intended recipient. "I'm sorry, Hannibal..."

The snow continued drifting down from the sky, only emphasizing the dead quiet. The flakes melted on his feverish skin, running in rivulets down his face. And if some of those rivulets were warm instead of cold, well, who was really around to notice?

He started when a warm tongue swept over his cheeks, licking the water away. Will couldn't help but smile. It was a puny effort at best, but Winston obviously felt encouraged and doubled his efforts, slobbering all over him. Will burst into laughter and finally managed to shoo him off. Winston looked at him, tongue lolling and eyes blinking happily.

"You're right," Will whispered and patted his head. "No more dawdling."

Will fought his way onto his feet, one hand on Winston's back. The effort made his head spin, and he leaned heavily on the dog. He could feel Winston tensing his muscles, gladly taking the weight, and he patted his side in gratitude.

For a moment, he just breathed. When he opened his eyes, he could see the lights of his house. They were nothing but pin-pricks, floating far, far in the distance, further away than he ever remembered them being, but they were glowing brighter than ever before. He had wrapped the posts and rails of his porch in strings of fairy lights. It was his one concession to the holidays. Somehow, he knew it's what Abigail would have wanted.

His cheeks and nose were turning to ice, his toes not far behind them, and suddenly he found himself longing for the comfort and warmth of home. It was the first true emotion in longer than he wanted to remember. He rapped his fingers against his leg, motioning the pack forward, and they eagerly bounded towards home.

Will hesitated on the edge of the ridge, Winston waiting at his side. The darkness still swirled around him, still beckoned to him with shadowy tendrils. For a moment, he wavered on the edge between darkness and light.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep..." he whispered, the words barely audible. "...but I have promises to keep..." With a heavy sigh, he fell silent.

Then he made his way towards the light.

The End


End file.
